My son L is obsessed with Michael Jordan. His YouTube videos history, his No. 23 T-shirts, his Air Jordan sneakers, his room decor all scream of MJ obsession. While his 10-year old schoolmates and basketball teammates proudly don Steph Curry and Lebron James’ apparel and sneakers, L stays loyal to MJ who retired from NBA in April 2003, 5 years before L was born. It is far from clear if he loves MJ because he loves basketball, or he loves basketball because of MJ.
L’s Room – Right and Left Walls
As a curious mom to a super fan of MJ, I began devouring the stories and youtube videos of one of the greatest athletes of all time. Almost every story and video is consistent with his “His Airness” legacy until I chanced upon a YouTube video of MJ’s Basketball Hall of Fame induction speech and the corresponding “Crying Jordan” meme which I later learnt is a thing.
“All about my Haters” Speech
MJ’s big speech on September 2009 at the Hall of Fame Induction was a far cry from “His Airness” usual invincibility. At times with his facial muscles trembling, he delivered a speech that was aimed at trash talking his doubters. It was an uncomfortable moment to watch a sports juggernaut gave a speech that basically screamed “F my Haters!”.
Negative Motivation
While I am thinking MJ probably fired his PR manager for allowing him to look petty, vengeful and ungracious so publicly, this crying episode also gave us an appreciation of what feeds the motivation needed for achieving sports’ greatness – Negative Motivation.
By Negative Motivation, I don’t just mean using punishment to make someone do something, like when I firmly tell my kids they are not going on a playdate if they are not clocking enough reading hours (although that works wonders!). I am however suggesting that leveraging negative emotions like anger, pain and struggle can be a powerful motivation force to propel you to colossal action.
“Events that are negatively valenced (e.g., losing money, being abandoned by friends, and receiving criticism) will have a greater impact on the individual than positively valenced events of the same type (e.g., winning money, gaining friends, and receiving praise).” researchers wrote in the scientific journal Review of General Psychology. 1
Psychologists call this phenomenon “Negativity Bias“. For example, you might have a great day so far, but someone cut you off in traffic, and you end of getting pissed off the entire evening. Or you end up dwelling on the constructive criticism part of your performance review even though, the review was great overall.
From an evolution standpoint,2 responding more heavily to bad events makes perfect sense. Our survival requires our immediate attention to bad outcomes, like avoiding being eaten by the lion.
On the bright side, because of how powerful and potent they are, we can harness these unpleasant negative emotions and experiences to fuel motivation and action.
Negative is Positive
Imagine what the American civil rights movement in the 1960s would be like if Martin Luther King, Jr. had said, “White folks, we are human too, so please be nice to us.”
Instead, fueled with injustice and anger, Martin Luther King, Jr. activated and inspired tens of thousands and changed the course of history.
“King had reason enough to be provoked, time and again.” noted Hitendra Wadhwa, Founder, Mentora Institute in his Inc.com article,3 “He was physically threatened and attacked by bigoted people, repeatedly jailed by state authorities (sometimes on trivial traffic violations), harassed by the FBI and even vilified by fellow black leaders who preferred more aggressive forms of resistance.”
Consequently, if you read the stories of wildly successful people, you would notice a pattern that their backstories are rooted in struggles and rejections.
Jack Ma, co-founder of the Alibaba group and the richest man in China at the time of writing often spoke about being rejected in his youth for all 30 jobs he applied for, including KFC. 24 people applied for the job, recounted Ma, and 23 were hired. Not him.
In 1919, creative genius and the driving force behind Disney, Walt Disney, was fired from the Kansas City Star because he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” Oprah Winfrey was fired as an evening news reporter because she was “too emotionally invested” in the stories she was reporting on.
The power to fight back may have been the real launching pads for their successes.
Actionable Tip: Don’t Squander the Negative Emotions
In daunting times, we are predisposed to want to push the pain away. For some, they distract themselves with activities and exercise. For others, they turn to drugs, weed and alcohol to neutralize the pain and get out of their private hell. All this escape from pain ironically perpetuates it even more.
No matter who you are, we all face constant struggles. Rather than treat it as a plague that you need to eradicate, treat it as special gift. The next time life throws you bad bosses, a bully, people who underestimate you, friends who betray, obstacles, struggles, and challenges, don’t squander those negative emotions! Instead, be extremely grateful that life gave you free horsepower in the form of anger, frustrations and pain which can launch you into epic action dedicated to a better life.
I know this is true for me. While I lack the grace to forgive the many offhand remarks, undermining comments, discrimination, and derogatory words directed at me, I don’t think I will be where I am today without that power to fight, battle and win.
Early on in my career, I was given feedback by a senior male colleague that I had to be mindful that I was being perceived as “ambitious” as if that was a bad thing. That really bothered me and I spent months questioning my behavior.
It took me a while to realize that the “ambition” personality is part of who I am and the trait is a big part of my success equation. I guess traits like tenacity is not typically associated with a petite Asian women and early on, I would find myself arguing and defending my “ambition”. In men, ambition is desired and expected isn’t it? But those early comments never left me and continue to irritate me. In retrospect, those unpleasant moments were the ones that burnt into me, and prompt me to go outside the comfort zone, and bring out my inner warrior to fight and prove them wrong.
I am acutely aware that without those experiences, I may not have any drive to constantly strive to be a better leader of my team at work, be an active mentor to others, be a champion of diversity inclusion initiatives to counter potential biases and perceptions, and be involved in a non-profit to help the underserved.
Tap into the Pain
The key is not soaking up the negative emotions in vain. The pain needs to have firepower behind it.
In 1978, Michael Jordan tried out for the Emsley A. Laney High School varsity basketball team, but did not make the cut. During his crying induction speech, 4 Michael Jordan made it a point to call out the coach who didn’t pick him, and the guy who made the team “over” him, who was in the audience. Sure, he may lack social graces but maximizing bad emotions and channeling them into motivational gunpowder is a slam dunk for him.
With all that negativity as fuel, this NBA star then went on to score 32,292 points, earned six NBA championships and five NBA MVP titles, and made 14 All-Star Game appearances. Michael Jordan, is by acclamation, the greatest basketball player to ever grace the court. 5
“Whenever I was working out and got tired and figured I ought to stop, I’d close my eyes and see that list in the locker room without my name on it,” Jordan would explain. “That usually got me going again.”
Frank Sinatra is right –
“The best revenge is massive success.”
- Baumeister, Roy F.; Finkenauer, Catrin; Vohs, Kathleen D. (2001). “Bad is stronger than good”(PDF). Review of General Psychology. 5 (4): 323–370. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.5.4.323. Retrieved 2014-11-19.
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3652533/#R148.
- https://www.inc.com/hitendra-wadhwa/great-leadership-how-martin-luther-king-jr-wrestled-with-anger.html
- https://www.inc.com/hitendra-wadhwa/great-leadership-how-martin-luther-king-jr-wrestled-with-anger.html
- https://www.newsweek.com/missing-cut-382954
